What Recorders Need to Know About The Standard
Benefits of the Cadastral Data Content Standard
What County Recorders Do
Recording A Typical Real Property Transaction
Technology Used By Recorders

What Recorders Need to Know About The Standard

Much of what can be learned about the Standard can be found in Learning The Cadastral Data Content Standard.  In addition, County Clerks and Recorders should know that:

• the Standard provides defined terminology for information commonly used by Recorders, such as parcel, legal description, grantor, and grantee.
• terms used by Recorders are attribute values in the Standard.  For example, terms such as "Grantor" and "Grantee" are values indicating a person's role during a real property transaction in the "Transaction Agent/Role" entity in the Standard.
• the Standard provides a structure and terminology which can be used by Recorders throughout the profession, across county lines and state lines, offering a consistent and stable source for national use and standards.

Benefits of the Cadastral Data Content Standard to Recorders

• Inter-departmental data sharing, such as between Recorders, Assessors and Treasurers, reducing costs and duplication of data and mapping efforts.
• Data sharing among agencies working across administrative boundaries; promotes sharing and cooperation, and avoids redundancy in data development.
• Beneficial to database design, especially: (1) when just beginning to automate recorded information, and (2) when already automated and the time comes to enter a new software/hardware life cycle.  That is, the Cadastral Data Content Standard supplies a logical model of definitions and terminology which can feed into the development of physical databases.
• Share methods and resources in data development; develop useful and consistent data structures.
• Spatial feature matching across administrative boundaries.
• Retain consistency in attributing across administrative boundaries, enabling attribute selections to work across boundaries.

What County Recorders Do

Typical transactions, events, or records which county recorders may record include:

When dealing with land ownership, County Recorders are likely to perform any or all of the following steps:

• record documents (such as Deeds) pertaining to real estate property, and collect fees set by statute
• make acceptable legal documents a matter of permanent public record
• make a microfilmed or optically scanned digital copy of the recorded documents
• index documents so they may be located in the future
• maintain cross-referencing indexes to recorded records
• maintain a set of plat maps which show the current ownership of every tract of land in the county
• make records available for public inspection
• provide copies of documents (usually for a fee)
• record information updates, such as name changes
• index recorded documents by the names of the principal parties, by the location of the land (abstract), and by the kind of instrument
• provide certified replacement copies for lost originals

An excellent description of general operations of a typical Recorders or Register of Deeds office can be found in the Badger County example. (The Badger County example is an external link.  From there, use your browser's back button to return to these educational materials.)

In general, when it comes to dealing with transactions, a County Recorders’ role is passive.  This means that recorders are observers of transactions, but not participants in the transactions.   Recorders are most interested in the record of the transaction.

An agency like the BLM, on the other hand, is an active participant and is interested in the rights associated with the transaction, such as monitoring leased allotments, or converting land uses.  The BLM makes decisions on how the land will be used while transactions are taking place.  County recorders generally document transactions, without being involved in the decisions about uses of the land.

Recording A Typical Real Property Transaction

The list below describes a typical series of steps which a County Recorder's office might go through when recording a document pertaining to rights and interest in property, such as a Deed.

1. Original document is recorded with a date and time.
2. The document may be stamped or otherwise noted with information about fees and/or taxes.
3. Any accompanying affidavits and powers of attorney are recorded and indexed.
4. A copy of the document is indexed and filed.
5. The original document is returned to the customer, who is charged a fee for the recording of their document.
6. Documents are preserved, and may be in books, on microfilm/microfiche, and/or scanned and stored digitally.
7. Duplicate copies are stored off site, in secure locations, vaults, archives, etc.
8. Information on real property transactions, deeds which convey rights and interests in land between grantors and grantees, is passed along to the Assessors and Treasurers Offices.
9. Information for Department of Revenue tax reference may pass through the Recorders office, but may not be recorded.
10. The tract index and plat map are updated with information about the property from the recorded document.
11. If the transaction is the creation of a subdivision, documents for the new block and lot descriptions are  indexed, and the survey plat is updated.

Technology Used By Recorders

• microfilm readers
• digital scanners
• relational databases
• GIS
• internet, web pages